Review: The Miracle of Mercy Land by River Jordan

Title: The Miracle of Mercy Land
Author: River Jordan
Released: September 7, 2010
Publisher: WaterBrook Multnomah
Pages/format: 352 (Trade Paperback)
Genre: Christian Speculative Fiction
Source: WaterBrook Multnomah

Mercy Land has made some unexpected choices for a young woman of the 1930s. The sheltered daughter of a traveling preacher, she chooses to leave her rural community to move to nearby Bay City on the warm, gulf-waters of southern Alabama. There she finds a job at the local paper and spends seven years making herself indispensable to old Doc Philips, the publisher and editor. Then she gets a frantic call at dawn–it’s the biggest news story of her life and she can’t print a word of it.

Doc has come into possession of a curious book that maps the lives of everyone in Bay City–decisions they’ve made in the past, and how those choices affect the future. Mercy and Doc are consumed by the mystery locked between the pages–Doc because he hopes to right a very old wrong, and Mercy because she wants to fulfill the book’s strange purpose. But when a mystery from Mercy’s past arrive by train, she begins to understand she will have to make choices that will deeply affect everyone she loves–forever.

¡WARNING! There are a couple of spoilers in this review. They are marked so you can avoid them if you wish.

The Miracle of Mercy Land is one of those books I wasn’t sure I would like, but took a chance on anyways. I didn’t struggle to get through it, but I didn’t exactly feel compelled to follow the plot to the end either. It took me five days to read, and it wasn’t so interesting that it made me want to read any faster. There were some good points to the book and some bad points, but the bottom line is that it just wasn’t my type of story.

Plot: The plot premise is definitely intriguing, and I give Jordan credit for her creativity, but the idea of a mysterious ethereal book showing up on Doc’s desk and *SPOILER* somehow being able to alter the past and shape the future is a little too bizaar for my taste. Additionally, I’m not too keen on the fact that Cilla is a strange character/creature whose essence is never really explained. I think if you’re going to have a villain of such other-worldly proportions, she should at least be identified to a greater degree than she was. {END SPOILER} The pace of the book was good, a bit rushed at the end, but not bad.

Characters: Mercy and Doc are interesting, multi-dimentional characters, though I didn’t feel like I ever really got a full grasp on Doc’s character. John Quincy is likewise interesting, *SPOILER* though the part of him that wants revenge on Bay City is never really explored, even though it’s an important part of the plot. {END SPOILER} Aunt Ida adds color to the story, as does Miss Perry and Whistler towards the end of the book. Harriet also adds something special to the story. Cilla is a bit strange, as I mentioned before, and her presence in the story is never explained very well.

Ending: The ending of this book was pretty weak. *SPOILER* John Quincy’s long absence, subsequent return, and physical scars aren’t explained very well, and we never find out what happens to Cilla. (Nor, for that matter, is it ever explained what she is precisely.) At the climax of the story, which is very near the end, it’s not clear why Doc and Aunt Ida are unconscious on the floor, except that Cilla obviously did something to put them there. It’s also not adequately explained why John’s limp went away, then came back worse than ever. The ending left me with so many unanswered questions that it was hard to enjoy the final outcome. {END SPOILER}

Writing: Jordan is a competent writer. She doesn’t stand out too much; her vocabulary is descriptive but not terribly colorful, and there are definitely areas of the story where she does not explain things very well. On the whole, her writing is clear and easy to understand. There were times when I felt the dialogue was a bit forced or unrealistic, but it wasn’t too bad.

Cover: Kristopher Orr has designed a truly outstanding cover for this novel, made to resemble the mysterious other-worldly book at the center of the plot. It’s colorful, eye-catching, and sure to attract the attention of anyone browsing through bookstore shelves.

About River Jordan:

River Jordan is a critically acclaimed novelist and playwright. She speaks around the country on “The Passion of Story” and produces and hosts the radio program ClearStory. When not traveling the back roads of America, River lives with her husband and their Great Pyrenees lap dog in Nashville, Tennessee.